Surgery for anterior cervical discectomy is performed with the patient lying on his or her back. A small incision is made in the front of the neck, to one side. After fat and muscle are pulled aside with a retractor, the disc is exposed between the vertebrae. An operating microscope may be used as part of the disc is removed with a forceps. Specialized instruments or a surgical drill may be used to enlarge the disc space. This will help the surgeon to empty the disc space fully and relieve any pressure on the nerve or spinal cord from bone spurs or the ruptured disc. If a bone graft is used, it will be placed in the disc space to help fuse the vertebrae it lies between. Any of several graft shapes may be used. In most cases, a cervical plate is applied to the cervical bodies surrounding the disc that was operated on. These cervical plates are one-piece plates that span one or more cervical bodies. An exemplary cervical plate is shown in FIG. 1. In the plate of FIG. 1, in use one end of cervical plate 1 is fixed to a vertebra and the other end of the cortical plate is attached to a second vertebra. One of the goals of a cervical plate is to improve initial stability in the post-operative period in order to decrease the need for wearing a cervical collar and result in a faster return to normal activities. In addition, anterior cervical plate fixation can potentially decrease the complications of graft dislocation, end plate fracture, and late kyphotic collapse. The operation is completed when the neck incision is closed in several layers. Unless dissolving suture material is used, the skin sutures (stitches) or staples will have to be removed after the incision has healed.
One of the drawbacks of current cervical plates and cervical plating system is that they are designed in one-piece units and may not always adaptable to cervical vertebra bodies of different sizes. Additionally, in certain designs, the bone screw that secures the plate to the cervical body can back out of the cervical body over time, loosening the cervical plates. Also, current cervical plates can only be applied at the end of surgery limiting their usefulness during the decompression and disc evacuation.